Trojan.Ransomlock

Posted: May 1, 2012

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	9/10
Infected PCs:	157

First Seen:	May 1, 2012
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Trojan.Ransomlock is a family name for related Police Trojans that display inaccurate legal alerts, lock your computer and request money that supposedly goes towards paying a legal fine. Rather than being sent by any form of local police authorities, Trojan.Ransomlock actually is the product of criminals who use Trojan.Ransomlock to gather money from victims illegally. Trojan.Ransomlock variants can re-specialize their warning messages for including details that are specific to both your country and your computer, but never should be unlocked through the methods their pop-up warnings recommend. Rather than paying Trojan.Ransomlock off to cease its attacks, SpywareRemove.com malware researchers encourage disabling Trojan.Ransomlock entirely and then following that up by deleting Trojan.Ransomlock with your favorite brand of any anti-malware program.

Trojan.Ransomlock: One of the Rare Times that It's Safe to Snub the Police

Trojan.Ransomlock is a broad category of Police Ransomware Trojans, similar to Reveton, Urausy, Win32/Ransom, Weelsof, LockScreen and Winlock. SpywareRemove.com malware experts previously analyzed several variants of Trojan.Ransomlock, including Trojan.Ransomlock.G, Trojan.Ransomlock!gen4 and Trojan.Ransomlock.H, all of which display Trojan.Ransomlock's characteristic behavior:

Trojan.Ransomlock is installed without your permission or, usually, your knowledge of the attack. Drive-by-downloads that are enabled on hacked websites, spam e-mail links and compromised networks all can be sources of a Trojan.Ransomlock infection.
Trojan.Ransomlock detects your IP address, a statistic that can be used to estimate your PC's location. After doing this, Trojan.Ransomlock displays an appropriate pop-up for your region (such as, for Americans, the 'Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section' Ransomware) that alleges that your machine has been utilized to commit online crimes related to pornography, terrorist websites and/or copyright infringement. The pop-up blocks you from using your desktop and can't be closed (or minimized).
Trojan.Ransomlock's fake police alert asks you to pay a fine, which usually is transferred through Ukash or Paysafecard. SpywareRemove.com malware researchers warn that doing so is very unlikely to cause Trojan.Ransomlock to deactivate its attacks.
Depending on the variant of Trojan.Ransomlock that's involved in the attack, you also may experience system changes that block you from using several Windows features or programs. Security-related tools like Task Manager are particularly prone to being blocked, but you may be unable to access Windows Explorer at all.

Telling Trojan.Ransomlock Where to Put Its Ransom Demands

Since you don't gain anything by submitting to Trojan.Ransomlock's ransom, SpywareRemove.com malware researchers can't think of any justification for paying any variant of Trojan.Ransomlock or otherwise assuming that its legal threats hold any water. Trojan.Ransomlock's distribution patterns currently target the United States predominantly, but similar families of Police Trojans also have been analyzed in other regions (particularly Europe).

If your computer becomes locked by Trojan.Ransomlock, the immediate cure-all is to prevent Trojan.Ransomlock and its pop-up from launching. Safe Mode or, at worst, using a separate OS that's loaded onto a flash drive, should be enough to block Trojan.Ransomlock. With Trojan.Ransomlock blocked, you can use anti-malware software at your leisure to remove Trojan.Ransomlock without any worries about the police penalizing you for the action.

Aliases

Downloader.Agent2.BMJY [AVG]Trojan.Win32.Kovter [Ikarus]Trojan/Win32.Agent [AhnLab-V3]Heuristic.LooksLike.Win32.Suspicious.C!81 [McAfee-GW-Edition]TR/Dldr.Agent.xzeh [AntiVir]Trojan.DownLoader8.50041 [DrWeb]TrojWare.Win32.Trojan.Agent.Gen [Comodo]Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Agent.xzem [Kaspersky]Win32:Rootkit-gen [Rtk] [Avast]PWS-Zbot-FAYM!DB6ED66B50DA [McAfee]unknown virus Win32/DH{AwkKD1w} [AVG]UnclassifiedMalware [Comodo]Ransomer.BNP [AVG]W32/Agent.WTSK!tr [Fortinet]Trojan-Ransomer.BNP [Ikarus]
More aliases (92)

Use SpyHunter to Detect and Remove PC Threats

If you are concerned that malware or PC threats similar to Trojan.Ransomlock may have infected your computer, we recommend you start an in-depth system scan with SpyHunter. SpyHunter is an advanced malware protection and remediation application that offers subscribers a comprehensive method for protecting PCs from malware, in addition to providing one-on-one technical support service.

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Why can't I open any program including SpyHunter? You may have a malware file running in memory that kills any programs that you try to launch on your PC. Tip: Download SpyHunter from a clean computer, copy it to a USB thumb drive, DVD or CD, then install it on the infected PC and run SpyHunter's malware scanner.

Technical Details

File System Modifications

Tutorials: If you wish to learn how to remove malware components manually, you can read the tutorials on how to find malware, kill unwanted processes, remove malicious DLLs and delete other harmful files. Always be sure to back up your PC before making any changes.

The following files were created in the system:

%SystemDrive%\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\1jfuweif.exe

File name: 1jfuweif.exe
Size: 78.33 KB (78336 bytes)
MD5: 7640f953b6ee2b1c8004038fd15ddd03
Detection count: 59
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %SystemDrive%\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: September 26, 2012

%LOCALAPPDATA%\KB0025554\KB0025554.exe

File name: KB0025554.exe
Size: 124.94 KB (124944 bytes)
MD5: db6ed66b50da9e561b7435d656064f0f
Detection count: 35
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %LOCALAPPDATA%\KB0025554
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: May 13, 2013

%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp\msuoywo.com

File name: msuoywo.com
Size: 49.66 KB (49664 bytes)
MD5: 5602bfa5ff109a04c1db2169fe7937f8
Detection count: 26
File type: Command, executable file
Mime Type: unknown/com
Path: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: July 20, 2012

%APPDATA%\windowshostscr.exe

File name: windowshostscr.exe
Size: 32.71 KB (32715 bytes)
MD5: 07e67c21ad11d8ca93c19292d300dcf4
Detection count: 23
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %APPDATA%
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: February 7, 2013

%APPDATA%\Ms_dir_\msvcrt.exe

File name: msvcrt.exe
Size: 115.2 KB (115200 bytes)
MD5: b42ce393cafbd45f51b0e3c60e76646a
Detection count: 19
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %APPDATA%\Ms_dir_
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: July 20, 2012

%APPDATA%\{2ED60A26-7E6E-00E7-7956-C4430B7EE929}.exe

File name: {2ED60A26-7E6E-00E7-7956-C4430B7EE929}.exe
Size: 314.88 KB (314880 bytes)
MD5: 895025672cd41df8ecb8a305a67b2026
Detection count: 16
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %APPDATA%
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: April 29, 2013

%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Skype\SkypePM.exe

File name: SkypePM.exe
Size: 46.08 KB (46080 bytes)
MD5: ca248577608db2aa7a339596817ed474
Detection count: 12
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Skype
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: August 21, 2012

Rechnung.exe

File name: Rechnung.exe
Size: 67.07 KB (67072 bytes)
MD5: 640dc6bd696438ef2bd553c7c75b1996
Detection count: 6
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: May 3, 2012

seti0.exe

File name: seti0.exe
Size: 66.04 KB (66048 bytes)
MD5: dfe63887d6f18862af960e7fb0dedaa7
Detection count: 5
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: May 3, 2012

%WINDIR%\nhxsalid.exe

File name: nhxsalid.exe
Size: 280.57 KB (280576 bytes)
MD5: ee9440d8149955e3a7dcda2413c1ac40
Detection count: 5
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %WINDIR%
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: January 21, 2013

file.exe

File name: file.exe
Size: 39.41 KB (39415 bytes)
MD5: f369a60e652140be46023619ee18f758
Detection count: 4
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: May 3, 2012

Rechnung_Pdf.zip

File name: Rechnung_Pdf.zip
Size: 38.55 KB (38553 bytes)
MD5: 30cde47eaf866c354293604151b689d6
Detection count: 3
Mime Type: unknown/zip
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: May 3, 2012

usrinit.exe

File name: usrinit.exe
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file

%Windir%\ctfmon.exe

File name: %Windir%\ctfmon.exe
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\{Value}HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\"Userinit" = "%System%\userinit.exe, %System%\usrinit.exe"HKEY..\..\..\..{Subkeys}HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\SafeModeHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\SafeBootHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Control\SafeBootHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot